The mobile banking app of the largest private sector lender HDFC Bank, which has been under the regulatory lens for network outages, was down for an hour on June 15, Tuesday due to unspecified issues. The Mumbai-headquartered bank said the issues were faced late in the morning on Tuesday and the same was resolved in an hour. It urged customers to use the net banking alternative to transact in the interim. "We are experiencing some issues on the MobileBanking App. We are looking into this on priority and will update shortly,” the bank's vertical head of corporate communication Rajiv Banerjee tweeted.
Banerjee urged customers to use the net banking alternative to carry out transactions in the interim and regretted the inconvenience caused. An hour later, he tweeted that the issues around mobile banking apps are resolved and customers can use both net banking, which is accessed from browsers over laptops and desktop, and also the dedicated mobile banking app. It is to be noted that after three instances of network outages, the RBI had taken a strict set of measures against HDFC Bank in December 2020, which included prohibiting the largest credit card player from selling new cards, and the Central Bank had also asked the lender to improve its systems before the curbs were lifted.
"In the case of HDFC Bank, there were earlier episodes also. HDFC Bank has an overwhelming presence in the digital payment segment, in the internet banking segment. We have some concerns about certain deficiencies etc.. it is necessary that the HDFC Bank strengthens its IT systems before expanding further," Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das had said. “We cannot have thousands and lakhs of customers who are using digital banking to be in any kind of difficulty for hours together and especially when we are ourselves giving so much emphasis on digital banking. Public confidence on digital banking has to be maintained,” he added.
Admitting that the strictures passed by the RBI like completely banning new credit card issuances because of the shortcomings on the technology front are a "blot" on the reputation of the bank, its recently appointed managing director and chief executive Sashidhar Jagdishan said it has taken the right lessons from the regulatory interventions. "The fundamental part where we could probably have done better is resiliency and how do you recover faster when an outage happens," he had told analysts last month.
The bank scrip was trading 0.78% up at Rs 1,491 apiece on the BSE at 1422 hrs as against gains of 0.52% on the benchmark.